


Like Teacher, Like Pupil

by meguri_aite



Category: Thunderbolt Fantasy 東離劍遊紀 (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, M/M, established something, the true villain of the story is the horror of unpaid internships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28261500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meguri_aite/pseuds/meguri_aite
Summary: Shou shook his head as he watched Rin’s newly anointed disciple disappear behind the trees. “I don’t like that.”“You say that about everything I do, though,” Rin said. “Up to and including the choice of rooms in guest houses. A more fragile soul would have broken under the stream of such harsh criticisms, you know.”
Relationships: Rin Setsu A | Lǐn Xuě Yā/Sho Fu Kan | Shāng Bù Huàn
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Like Teacher, Like Pupil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Himmelreich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Himmelreich/gifts).



The serenity of an afternoon break well-earned was absolute and complete, not counting his companion — but if Shou Fu Kan ever counted Rin, there would be no nice afternoons left for him at all, so. It was a wonderful, balmy autumn day; the low afternoon sun had enough heat in it to warm his bones, and enough light to turn the maple leaves overhead into a festive crimson canopy. It was a perfect spot to catch a breath.

That was why, when a speck on the horizon resolved itself into a person marching purposefully in their direction, Shou disliked him on sight.

“What are the chances he’s looking for someone else?” he asked without much hope.

“Somewhat higher than absolutely impossible, but not by much,” Rin said, without turning to look. “After all, the paths of destiny are beyond the eyes of a mere human such as myself.” Rin let out the explanation along with a cloud of bluish smoke, both trailing into thin air in elaborate flourishes wholly wasted on his current audience. He added, in a much more prosaic tone, “It’s no one I know — must be one of yours. But I have to say, had we not agreed to exchange the full list of exes, to avoid situations like this?”

“Axes?” Shou twitched. “Don’t tell me I need to worry about magical axes on top of swords?”

“Why would I even talk about swords?” Rin said, shrugging off that tasteless notion. “I meant our former — companions,” He lowered his eyes and took another long drag at this pipe.

“Oh, that. Like that crazy man who chased me across the town the other day, screaming bloody murder about his jilted heart or destroyed honor or something?”

“That one was on the list,” Rin said. “Unlike any of yours.”

“That’s because I don’t have a list! I don’t go around collecting jilted maniacs,” Shou pointed out reasonably, but did that man ever listen? With a delicate snort, Rin only breathed out another cloud of smoke in his direction, and Shou gave up trying to press the issue. “No, I don’t know this guy. I just want to eat my shaobing.” Shou sighed, and absently waved the blue smoke away from his face.

The stranger, who was by now beyond any doubt headed towards them, was a man with a youthful, puppy-like face, which reminded Shou of — someone he would definitely remember in a moment; damn, his memory was getting bad these days. There was so much wide-eyed earnestness and directionless enthusiasm in the stranger’s face that Shou felt it in his bones as his prospects of a quiet time plummeted.

“Most honorable Sir Shou Fu Kan, my greetings,” the man wheezed out, as soon as he was within hearing distance. He was winded and flushed, and the high color in his cheeks did not improve after he executed two long ceremonial bows. “And his trusted friend, the renowned master Rin Setsu A.”

Rin Setsu A, who was no one’s trusted friend, turned his countenance to the newcomer, and offered him a benevolent smile. “To whom do we owe the pleasure?”

The man bent in a third bow, even deeper than the first two, unnecessarily dragging his long embroidered sleeves in the dust at Rin’s feet. “I am Yuu Ken Ko, the gouinshi of the Crystal Lake shrine. I am the third son of the Yuu house of shrine guardians, famous for their service to the major clans during the time of the Ancient Demon Wars, and we are those who keep a vigilant watch in darkest hours in the name of — “ The man droned on, but Shou stopped listening, trying to remember who Yuu Ken Ko reminded him of.

“That Tan Hi’s young boy!” He slapped a hand against his knee, relieved to pin the name to the face.

“Ah yes, indeed, honorable Ken San Un, now the head of the Tan clan, and the consort of esteemed lady Tan Hi — my house is affiliated with theirs. As I was saying, we serve the noble houses of —” Shou quickly lost interest in the recital of Touri seal guardians' family history, and wondered how long it would take for the man to arrive at his point. Rin maintained an expression that suggested he found the story absolutely riveting, which definitely meant he was thinking about something else.

“…and that is why, after hearing their glowing endorsement, and encouraged by the success of my predecessors, I have arrived to humbly present myself to you, Sir Shou Fu Kan, in hopes that you could consider my candidacy and find it worthy of your apprenticeship.”

“What? No, absolutely not!” Shou said immediately, and quietly congratulated himself on having tuned back in to catch the important part of the speech.

Yuu Ken Ko visibly wilted, shuffled his feet, and pitifully tugged at the strap of his impractical travel pack, half the weight of which must have been accounted for by the tassels and embroidery. Shou started to hope that he would be able to get to his lunch soon, but then, as often was the case, Rin had to go and ruin his day.

“I do not pretend to possess half the spirit or the worth that Sir Shou does, but if you, as you say, are on a journey to cultivate your spirit and expose yourself to new experiences that you could bring back to enrich the noble traditions of your family, I could offer you that — along with an apprenticeship,” Rin said, contriving to sound modest and generous at once.

“What? Absolutely not!” Shou repeated, now with significantly more alarm.

Yuu Ken Ko’s eyes widened, glistening like two overflowing sake cups. “I am unworthy of this privilege, o most knowledgeable scholar, but I am willing to work hard to bridge this gap and earn the honor…”

“Then why don’t you go and set up camp for us? There must be a good clearing near that stream over there,” Rin said, and waved off the man. “What? There is no time like now to take the first step on a journey to self-improvement.”

Shou shook his head as he watched Rin’s newly anointed disciple disappear behind the trees. “I don’t like that.”

“You say that about everything I do, though,” Rin said. “Up to and including the choice of rooms in guest houses. A more fragile soul would have broken under the stream of such harsh criticisms, you know.”

Shou, who was determined not to get into a new round of arguments about unnecessarily luxurious accommodation paid for by money of dubious provenance, steered the conversation back to the subject at hand. “What are you planning to do with him? You can’t be serious about making him your student. What are you going to teach him, petty graft and parlour tricks?”

“Yuu Ken Ko doesn’t have anything to fear from me if he is a decent man,” Rin said gravely. “You know I am only interested in people worth stealing their prized possessions from. There is no joy in aiming to take down anyone lesser than villains of a solid caliber, who cling so hard to their pride and confidence… “ Rin’s gaze got a misty look which Shou was too tired to get riled up about; to each their own, he supposed. And judging by the fact Shou never seemed to be able to shake Rin off his back, the man was at least honest about what kind of people he found interesting.

“I see you are not convinced, though,” Rin said. “May I point out, as the last resort and a piece of hard evidence in my own defence, that I have never been anything but a good friend to that talented young musician of yours.”

“Rou?” Shou felt his hackles rise. “If you ever try something funny towards —”

Rin raised an elegant hand in a gesture of peace offering.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying though: Rou Fu Yo is not a villain, and I have displayed nothing towards him but my sincerest overtures of friendship. Your precious friends are my precious friends,” Rin said, in exceedingly self-congratulatory tones.

Shou snorted. “At least one fact among these is true.”

“Again, you wound me,” Rin said, his hand coming to rest over his open collar in feigned distress. “Have I not earned your trust yet?”

Shou gave him a long, flat stare. “I’ll stick around to see you don’t mess with Yuu Ken Ko’s head. There is still that old job to finish, too, so until it’s wrapped up — I have my eyes on you.”

Rin offered him a demure smile. “By all means.”

* * *

The following week was a strange one.

Shou needed to get rid of the manuscripts they had rescued from an old temple that was burnt down by some lunatics the previous week, so he did most of the legwork of knocking on the shrine doors in the area asking around for scholars who could restore and protect the salvaged scrolls. Rin and his disciple mostly stayed in the woods, moving only from camp to camp, because Rin claimed the restorative qualities of fresh air as experienced in nature’s very embrace was essential for his teachings.

Rin turned out to have a truly endless supply of those to dispense to a willing listener; Shou was not sure why he was even surprised.

“Ki is the kind of all-permeating energy that can be traced to everything that surrounds us, both living and non-living, though I don’t imagine that someone pursuing knowledge in the noble service of shrine guardianship would care overmuch about the latter. The flow of it is often compared to a bloodstream — a simplistic simile that only holds up to scrutiny on the assumption that one can, with due tutelage and some modest talent for it, learn to reverse their own blood flow. In practice, it invariably spills out more easily than in. There are a number of teachers who make a comfortable living off that property of life, but let us not dwell on matters so crude for too long…”

Shou would have dozed off halfway through an explanation of this sort — there was altogether too much rubbish to mine for the few nuggets of useful information in anything the man said — but Yuu Ken Ko followed all instruction diligently, did everything Rin asked of him with remarkable alacrity, and took copious notes on little pieces of paper that he stashed in bottomless pockets on his person, which he always sat down to copy into his large, leather-bound books before nightfall. At some point, Shou had revised his previous assessment of Yuu Ken Ko’s travel bag: it was not only impractical, but also impractically heavy, very likely from all the writing supplies and paper in it.

At the moment, Yuu Ken Ko had been sent out on an assignment to find and collect the cuttings of some rare flowers that were currently in bloom and harvest fresh sage leaves (‘My medical stash needed restocking’) and then compose an essay on thirty-three uses of the above in restorative and laxative potions (‘Something to keep him busy until tomorrow’).

“I’m surprised you’re actually teaching him anything,” Shou said, settling in a cozy spot under a gnarly pine tree, to which he had felt instant companionship. “Is he doing well, then? Must be, with how much effort he’s putting in…”

“Oh yes, I’m surprised how much snooping around he still manages to achieve despite all the homework I give him. I must be more lenient than I give myself credit for —”

“He — what?”

Rin stopped fiddling with his pipe for a moment and gave Shou a look so full of condescension it bordered on fond indulgence. “It is truly a sign of your noble nature, my dear Shou Fu Kan, and your staunch faith in humanity, that you need your humble servant to point out that the entirety of our provisions and travel bags have been thoroughly examined on multiple occasions by my enterprising apprentice.”

Uncomfortable, Shou patted a few of his inner pockets on reflex. “What’s he after, do you know?”

Rin moved one shoulder in an elegant shrug that did not disturb a single line of his robes, carefully arranged into an appearance of casual dishevelment caught in a moment of stillness. “Why should he be different from anyone else we’ve met so far? Some sword or another, I presume.”

Shou sighed, tired of the conversation already. “For once —”

“— I wish it was something else, I know,” Rin said with genuine sympathy. “How am I supposed to not find this tedious, otherwise? A simple goal only attracts simpletons, who give me nothing to work with.”

Just like that, a moment of shared commiseration quickly vanished, and Shou grunted, “Don’t know about that. But the index is in place, at least.”

“Fortunately for you, very few people have the imagination to look for a truckload of legendary demon-slaying weaponry inside a tattered roll of paper carried at the bottom of a travel sack. You must excuse their short-sightedness; not everyone is as resourceful as you are, my friend.” Shou never made any indication that he was amused by Rin’s regular show of sycophantry, but that never seemed to have an effect; the man carried on. “Though my disciple is not without hope. While he continues to search for some glittering scabbards among your cooking utensils, I’m sure the diligent Yuu Ken Ko has inventorized everything he has found so far, including those manuscripts you are hauling to and fro. His note-taking is not bad, and could give him enough circumstantial evidence to deduce the nature of your... unorthodox storage solution. How long do you think it might take him to figure it out? Want to place a bet?”

“I want you to get lost,” Shou said, automatically and without much feeling. “Barring that — why are you letting him hang around, then?”

“Aren’t you curious if he can lead us to Kasei Meikou? I believe last time we were ambushed you lamented that their agent died too quickly to get a good idea of what kind of an opponent they were.”

“It’s not like I’m trying to one-up the bug council, I just want them not to get in my way.”

“Semantics.” Rin waved him off. “And I could always assign my diligent student more compositions, to keep him busy until you’re done trying to offload those manuscripts. No luck again?”

“As you can see.” Shou nodded to his own bag, which still noticeably bulged with the rescued scrolls. “I wonder what’s wrong with this country. Back in Seiyou I’d have easily found a master who’d be delighted to add them to their collection and keep them in better conditions than the first burlap sack I could find.”

“Of course, just like there would have been many people who’d have gladly taken the swords off your hands,” Rin nodded sagely. “Perhaps eventually you’ll end up making another index, now for the ancient manuscripts — may I offer the burlap sack as the spell foundation? Very practical, dual use tool, just like you prefer them.”

“Oh will you shut up.” Shou frowned, not wanting to admit that the thought had crossed his mind. “So, what, we just let him hang around until he reveals his hand?”

“Until we find better things to do. At least the chores get done, can’t complain about that.”

* * *

Nothing changed the next day either, except Shou’s back was giving him trouble, which he ascribed to the change in weather. He did not fancy colder seasons much; his old coat was still reliable, but sleeping under the trees did not get any more comfortable with each passing day. At least it was not the rain season yet; he’d count his small mercies where he could get them.

His quest still refused to be fulfilled — the scholar he contacted today ended up needing help instead of offering any, and Shou spent most of the day cleaning out a minor demonic infestation in their small shrine’s library — so it was yet another day of him coming back with his burden. At their camp, Yuu Ken Ko was going through a series of breathing exercises under Rin’s supervision. Rin himself was dispensing instruction from an improvised hammock stretched between two trees, his preferred method of teaching being evidently ‘do as I say, not as I do’.

That sight filled Shou, worn down by the fruitless search of his own, with a desire to do at least something useful.

“Hey, you there,” he said, laying down his bags and taking up his sheathed sword. “Both of you,” he added, after a short and unkind consideration. “I am going to run through some exercises good for ki flow, how about you throw some practice into your regimen?”

Yuu Ken Ko nearly fell out of his seated meditation pose in his hurry to scramble up. Rin threw Shou a look that said he recognized this as petty vengeance, but that he, Rin Setsu A, could rise above squabbles like that for the sake of pedagogical integrity. He got out of his hammock without a single silk ribbon getting tangled on the way, and landed nimbly on his feet.

“Of course, if the renowned hero Sir Shou Fu Kan is willing to give a demonstration to supplement the theoretical exercises we have been working on, it would be most amiss of us not to heed the teachings of the expert,” he said with utmost courtesy, which made Shou feel a prick of guilt at his childish impulse. But he was looking forward to working out some of the knots in his muscles, and doing that in company was preferable to doing that to a backdrop of recital of uses of herbal remedies for hemorrhage, or whatever was the latest on their study menu.

“Alright. Grab a walking stick or a sword or something, we’re gonna go through some stances.”

He started with the more meditative warm-up exercises, meant to steady the mind and listen to the hum of the energy with the body, and once the flow of the movement kicked in, he picked up the pace and let it carry his body forward, to the point where the physical exertion burnt up the small aches and pains that had built up, along with his annoyance at his continued failure to tie up the loose ends from the previous job. There was a simple joy in that, and Shou was a simple man.

“Please.” A wheezing remark broke through Shou’s serenity. “I just — I need a break.”

Shou finished the kata and turned to look at Yuu Ken Ko, who was now leaning heavily on his ornate sword, knees visibly trembling with the effort to stand upright.

“Are you alright?” Shou wondered if he had overdone it, but when he glanced at Rin, the man seemed to show no sign of overexertion. His shiny decorated cloak was pulled back, and there was a light sheen of sweat on his brow and at his collar, but it was nothing that Shou himself didn’t have. He turned back on the disciple.

“I thought all seal guardians had swordsmen training,” he said, dubious.

“They do,” Yuu Ken Ko wheezed out. “I mean, I have the training, but my skills are too modest when compared to yours…”

“If you were a more scholarly type, you should have just said so from the start,” Shou said bluntly. “There is no shame in that. Though I can’t see why one would ever want to seek an apprenticeship with me.” Belatedly, he remembered Rin mentioning Yuu Ken Ko’s hidden agenda, and felt a bit awkward. He was finding it hard to keep in mind that the man was a villain when Shou mostly saw him swamped with homework.

“Why don’t you go take a break,” Rin suggested, setting aside Yuu Ken Ko’s heavy walking stick he used for the exercise. “Make us an infusion, while you are at it. Feverfew and sweet root, like we discussed the other day. Do you have any honey left? Add that as well.”

Yuu Ken Ko hobbled away — towards the water, Shou supposed — using his ornamental sword, now sheathed, like a crutch.

“His stamina’s no good,” Rin observed.

“He’s really a magician then?” Shou asked.

“You say it like it’s an excuse for bad stamina.” Evidently, there was nothing wrong with Rin’s own stamina, so point taken, Shou supposed. “But he is a better magician than he is a swordsman, I’ll grant that. For example, I currently have very limited access to my magical reserves because of some suppressing spell he cooked up. I really should have given him more homework.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Shou asked, frowning. He doubted Rin would be completely defenceless with such a handicap, but if they needed to rearrange things a bit to avoid openly exposing his neck like that…

Rin did not appear overly concerned. “It’s annoying, but not much more than that. It seems the spell did not affect objects imbued with sorcery or raw energies, the kinds that can be used by anyone who possesses them, so there are a few tricks I could lean on.”

“Your pipe?” Shou hazarded a guess.

“Alas, not the pipe. I had a few more enchantments thrown on it, as a precaution to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, you understand… But the spell makes the tricks in it virtually inaccessible.”

So the pipe was only good enough to ram into someone’s eye, if the worst came to worst, then. Shou sighed. “So what are your tricks, then?”

“Why, you, of course,” he said readily and with much pleasure.

Unamused, Shou glared at him.

“I mean your … resourceful magic, of course,” Rin continued blithely. “Much as it would horrify any theoretician, it has certain crude efficiency that —”

“If you are just going to be rude about it, might as well just shut up,” Shou suggested.

“If you bear with me, I was just getting to the point where I was going to say that this very quality gives it an unbeatable advantage,” Rin said. “I would be very surprised if his spell’s range accounts for something like your magic.”

Shou had no clue, but he supposed Rin knew what he was talking about. “So, do you need me to try and patch up something for you, until you figure out what to do with the spell?”

“Yes, please,” Rin said readily. He turned his back to Shou and flipped his long hair over one shoulder, so that Shou was staring at the strip of pale skin at the nape of Rin’s neck. “If you could just inscribe a basic rejuvenation sigil right on my skin, please? And then lay your hand over it to send your ki directly into my system. That way I think we could circumvent the spell because it would work as a lossless transferral of raw energy.”

“Rejuvenation? Are you hurt anywhere?” Shou gave him a once-over, trying to find any discreet signs of an injury, but under the shiny silk robes, there was simply no telling.

“Ohh, are you worried about my wellbeing?” Rin turned over his shoulder, delighted, so Shou poked him painfully under the ribs to wipe that expression off his face. “Well, it will be significantly dampened if my beauty charms are not maintained. With your help, though, I’m sure I could redirect the raw energy from the sigil —”

“Beauty charms? Is that what you need my help with?” Shou said, disbelieving.

“Everything else can be solved by some manual labor,” Rin said. “Distasteful but manageable. But a bad hair day would be taking it too far. Do you need an ink brush? I have Yuu Ken Ko’s somewhere here…”

Shou did not know why he even bothered, honestly. He laid a palm on Rin’s skin and lovingly thought about wringing that neck. “Get me that brush, then.”

* * *

The following week passed pretty much exactly like the one before it. On the one side, Shou still had no luck getting rid of the manuscripts, but by some scholarly grapevine had been invited twice to exorcise some dusty old spirit from a few other shrines. He had agreed, hoping against hope that at least one of them would take the manuscripts in exchange, but it was just not happening. On the other side, back at the campgrounds, Rin continued to inflict his wisdom on his disciple, who was finally showing signs of fraying under his workload. Shou supposed that having cast a spell that was supposed to deprive Rin of all magic and then watching the man carry on as if he hadn’t noticed it was pushing Yuu Ken Ko’s spirit further from the path to serenity. In any other circumstance, Shou would sympathize; Rin was really just that annoying.

At the same time, Rin’s stray disciple also had to be getting twitchier on the account of not having seen any magical swords about the camp. Now that he knew what to look for, Shou started seeing signs of his things being looked through. Given that Shou barely had anything on his person, let alone anything valuable, any evidence he could find had to be a sign of Yuu Ken Ko’s growing desperation.

At some point Yuu Ken Ko was bound to get antsy, Shou thought. He’d much prefer to be far away by then, but since Rin didn’t have his magic back yet, Shou supposed he’d have to keep an eye open, if only to minimize the bodily injuries when Yuu Ken Ko inevitably snapped.

Speaking of Rin’s magic, though.

“It’s surprising that you still don’t have it back,” Shou said, his hands on Rin’s bare neck again, pumping him with a fresh dose of ki. Rin hadn’t asked for anything else, or complained about the treatment he was getting, but his glowing looks never dimmed one bit, so Shou supposed whatever energy Rin got from him every other day sufficed for his needs.

“Mmm?” Rin sounded a little too comfortable, so Shou pressed a thumb against the point of his neck that was meant to send a jolt of zapping energy to wake him up, but Rin only relaxed further under Shou’s fingers, and turned his head a little, offering his other side. “You mean the magic? I thought you’d be all in favour of it.”

“What?”

“All this healthy lifestyle, soul-cleansing plain labour…”

Shou slowed down the trickle of ki between them, considering things from this new perspective. Rin did not seem to have any issues keeping things up like this, he didn’t seem to heap any of his own chores on Yuu Ken Ko’s to-do list (more than he had before his magic was suppressed, Shou corrected himself), and any reasonable person would assume that with fewer tools at his disposal Rin would just stay away from trouble. Shou tried not to dwell too long on his conviction that the said reasonable person would probably live to regret his conclusion.

The sound of a twig snapping underfoot interrupted his thought. “Was that Yuu Ken Ko again?”

Rin shrugged, failing to appear even a little bit concerned. The neckline of his robe slipped down one shoulder. “Could you go lower please? Yeah, just like that,” he purred, bowing his head down to give Shou more skin access. Shou concentrated on increasing the ki flow directed outwards, but a part of him noticed that Yuu Ken Ko remained not too far from them, frozen still behind the bushes.

Shou bent down to whisper into Rin’s ear, for fear of being overheard. “Your misbegotten pupil can probably see this. Won’t that be a problem?” Unless Rin was getting bored with the show; Shou did not have a preference one way or another.

Rin reached back and rested his hand lightly on Shou’s shoulder. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

A rather conspicuous rustling of the bushes suggested that Yuu Ken Ko probably had enough of spying on nothing happening and left. Shou straightened up and absently adjusted Rin’s collar, which was trying to slip further down.

“Well, whatever you say, then.”

***

Their next day was ushered in by a blood-curdling demonic shriek loud enough to crack the sky open. Shou reluctantly opened his eyes, saw that it was still too dark to count as the next day, that nothing was on fire, that within his line of sight Rin was tucked under his cloak and not setting anything on fire, and let his heavy eyelids drop again.

The demonic screech assaulted his hearing again before he could fall back asleep. “It’s not going away, is it,” Shou sighed and sat up, throwing the blankets away. “I’d better go see what this is.”

“We could send Yuu Ken Ko in,” Rin suggested helpfully, not stirring an inch.

“Where is he, actually?” Shou looked around, but couldn’t see Yuu Ken Ko anywhere. The night before he had seemed pretty quiet, if a little flushed and jumpy, and he would have made his bed somewhere close to the fire, as was his habit; Shou worried that all the scribbling Rin made him do late into the night would ruin Yuu Ken Ko’s eyesight ahead of his time.

But there was no sign of him anywhere. 

“Is there anything missing?” Rin asked, finally upright, if not exactly in a rush to help. 

“Other than your disciple?”

“Don’t you wish he’d made off with the manuscripts at least? But I can see they are still here.” 

Shou hated to agree with Rin, so he said instead, “I’ll go check if whoever made that noise hasn’t eaten Yuu Ken Ko,” because Rin was definitely not going to.

He didn’t have to go far: Yuu Ken Ko came stumbling out of the woods, looking like hell itself was hot on his heels.

“Demons!” he yelled at a pitch that could stand its ground in a competition with the demonic howling earlier. “Thieves! Murderers!”

“Who’s murdered?” Shou asked, because clearly Yuu Ken Ko wasn’t.

“What’s stolen?” Rin asked with interest.

“My ancestral sword, my working notes, my dignity and honor!”

“Personally, I’ve not found demons particularly interested in the latter,” Rin mused out loud. “Shame about your notes, though. You’ve made strides in magical theory essay structure.”

Shou tried to remember if there was anything that stood out about Yuu Ken Ko’s sword except its tasteless decor, but nothing came to mind. It was probably a serviceable sword, but not a Shinkai Makai, and thank the gods for that.

Shou left Rin to talk to his distraught disciple, and went to check the spot of the alleged demonic attack. He found some traces of magical residue and quite a lot of trampled grass, but nothing more incriminating than that. If it had been a demon, it was a pretty disinterested one, he thought, and returned back to the camp, hoping to catch a nap before they had to set off again.

However, it was not meant to be. 

Inconsolable, Yuu Ken Ko bemoaned his inability to fend off the attackers and the imminent prospects of being disowned by his shrine on return. Rin’s smile was getting a particularly sugary look that meant that his mood was turning blacker by the minute; he did not enjoy histrionics he had not orchestrated himself. Shou’s map showed no shrines nearby he could see about the manuscripts, so packing up camp and starting to walk before daybreak was a better prospect than marinating here with these two.

They set off on their day’s journey, and it was not long before Shou noticed it was not only their mood that was foul that day. The scenery around them was still a regular autumn forest, but an unpleasant yellowish fog clung to the leaves under their feet: a sulfurous vapor that was a sign of demonic activity more definitive than any infernal howling.

Shou glanced at Rin. The man didn’t show any signs of being bothered by what looked like a guaranteed run-in with something unpleasant in their imminent future, so Shou had to assume Rin had a plan. One he did not expect to like, but publicly arguing about it without mentioning Rin’s current demagicked state was beyond Shou’s diplomatic abilities, so he had to let it go.

The fog thickened, coiling now at their knee level and hiding the path they were following; the trees started looking more skeletal by each step, and an infernal miasma swirled through their gnarly, bare branches like ghostly foliage. The map did not have anything unusual marked in the area, so all of this had to be recent.

“My sword,” whimpered Yuu Ken Ko. “I can’t even defend myself.”

“Aren’t you, like, a magician?” Shou said, mostly to distract him. Whatever his skills, Yuu Ken Ko did not look like the kind of person who would keep their wits in a sticky situation. “Didn’t you learn any useful spells from your teacher?”

“We were focusing on more spiritual pursuits,” said Rin. “Polishing the vessel so that it was ready to retain the poured knowledge.”

“A sturdy vessel is handy for knocking a man out, if dropped on his head with enough force,” Shou said absent-mindedly. The fog was now rising above their knees. He unsheathed his wooden sword and handed it over to Yuu Ken Ko. “Why don’t you hold this then, just in case.” The sword may not be of much use to Yuu Ken Ko in harming others, but at least it would keep him from harming himself. 

“What about you, Sir Shou?” asked Yuu Ken Ko, alarmed. 

“Eh, a branch will do.” Shou walked to the nearest skeletal tree, snapped two sturdiest looking branches and threw one at Rin, which he caught without looking. “Try not to get in the way, if it gets to that. Try to think of something, er, long-range.”

And not a moment too soon: as if it had been waiting for Shou to finish speaking, the earth trembled and, with an ominous hiss that washed over them along with more pungent yellow fog, cracked under their feet. They jumped back in time to get a good view of the slimy, deformed creatures crawling out of the opening chasms, each of their six arms bulging with muscle that looked like slabs of raw meat. These limbs were okay for crushing people in a melee, but would quickly become a hindrance in a fight any more sophisticated.

“Here we go, then.” Shou cracked his neck, got a good grip on his stick, and threw himself at the writhing mass of six-handed muscle. 

As predicted, they were not very hard to dispatch. Knocking them back down into the cracks seemed to do them little damage, but ki given an edge sliced through them with little problem. From the corner of his eyes, Shou spotted a flash of blue and white: Rin had joined the fray, and was cutting a path through the demon spawn with more competence than enthusiasm. 

Shou cut the head off an overactive monster and used his body to knock away three more that were coming too close, and maneuvered himself to be back to back with Rin.

“Do you see Yuu Ken Ko anywhere?” he shouted over his shoulder. He felt Rin brace himself against Shou’s back as he sent two monsters flying with a powerful crescent kick before landing softly on the balls of his feet.

“If he isn’t competent enough to stay out of the way when his mess is being mopped up by others,” Rin said, knocking two bulbous heads together with a crunching noise that made Shou grin, “then he probably deserves to be eaten.”

Shou swept his stick at the monsters’ feet, cutting their tendons. As the bodies fell, Shou looked around. There were fewer of them rising, now — if they were attacking in waves, perhaps this one has trickled down. Further back, in the clearing, he spotted a familiar figure, too.

“I thought he’d be up a tree somewhere, but he actually seems to be doing something useful there, huh.” He nudged Rin and pointed in the direction where he spotted Yuu Ken Ko, as he stood muttering in the middle of a circle that Shou supposed had been etched into the ground with his wooden sword.

Rin turned to look and froze in his place. “That little shit,” he hissed.

Shou turned to him, surprised by the tone, and just in time, too: while Rin was spitting curses, a half-cut demon spawn had crawled close to him and was about to sink its teeth into Rin’s leg, so Shou nailed him to the ground before asking, “Something wrong?”

“Not unless you fancy turning these guys into mincemeat for all eternity,” Rin said. “That spell he is working on right now will seal everything in this radius, excluding the caster, in an infinity loop.”

“He can do that?” Shou asked, impressed; he had gotten too used to thinking of Yuu Ken Ko as a hapless tag-along.

“Only because I was distracted by our little exercise.” Rin waved the stick at him and then without interruption continued the motion to stab one of the crawling demon spawn in the eye. “If I had my magic, interrupting this would be no big deal.”

“What if we take him out?” Shou assessed the distance: it was an easy one to cross, especially if one of them stood back to keep kicking the monsters back into the underworld.

“Not at this stage, no. We should have done it before the circle was activated. Now it will protect him until the spell is complete, and the only way to do it is by magic. And fast.”

“Inconvenient.” Shou made a quick inventory of all available options. It was a very short list, so he said, “You can work with my raw ki energy, right? What do you need to get access to the whole of it?”

Rin’s eyes widened. “You’d let me?”

“Unless your idea of a fun time is being stuck here forever.” Shou threw the words back at him and watched Rin’s face transform into something dangerous and beautiful, like a thunderbolt piercing the surface of a lake.

“As you wish,” Rin said, with a little bow. “If you’ll allow me…”

Rin dropped his stick and moved closer to Shou. Nonplussed, Shou watched him make a quick job of the ties that held Shou’s outer robes together, and snake a hand under Shou’s collar. For a moment, Rin’s palm lay steady against his ribcage, and then pushed the cloth to the side.

“Do you need to paint a sigil on me? Could have just asked,” Shou grumbled, shivering.

“Now where would the fun be in that,” Rin murmured, mostly to himself. Then he reached back to pull a long needle from his elaborate headdress, and Shou felt a prick of it against his skin. “This may hurt a little,” Rin said.

“I can probably handle a small scra—,” Shou started saying, and then he felt the needle ram through his chest.

What happened next he distantly observed rather than saw with his own two eyes. His body, along with all of his senses, were outside his control; the pathworks of energy seemed to expand from within Shou’s body like a glowing net — with Rin at the center, like a virtuoso spider cradling his prized possession.

Shou’s lips moved, whispering incantations he didn’t know; his hands formed warding signs that he has never seen. Rin traced the expanding net of ki flows with his finger as if they were solid golden strings, and watched them resonate with a low hum.

“Let’s play,” Rin said, and struck a chord of violence out of the golden strings.

The net rippled, and branches of it tore and formed giant celestial claws that extended and grew towards Yuu Ken Ko and his spell circle, which in Shou’s newfound out-of-body perspective looked like a translucent red globe. Yuu Ken Ko’s eyes were closed as he was still doing his incantations, so he didn’t see the claws sink into the walls of the globe and slice it as a good cook slices daikon. It was satisfying to watch, like any job well-done.

The incantation completed just a second after the daikon-slicing: Yuu Ken Ko opened his eyes, and his triumphant expression drained out of his face along with all color in it. There was a small shriek as the golden claws sliced at his chest, and then he collapsed to the ground.

The claws vanished, and Shou was unceremoniously sucked back into his body.

Gasping, he rubbed at this chest — completely intact and not a single drop of blood on it — and then turned to look at Rin. “Did you kill him?” Shou asked, pulling his clothes back tight on his chest.

“Just undid all of his spells at once.” Rin pulled out his pipe from his bottomless sleeves and took a long drag out of it, and then exhaled. The smoke poured from Rin’s mouth with his outbreath, and kept flowing and flowing until it coated the entire area in a thick blue mist.

When it dissipated, there were no six-armed demons, either dead or alive, and the sulfurous cracks in the ground had healed up like old scars, where the grass only grew in scarce patches. Yuu Ken Ko was still lying unconscious within his spell circle, but this time around, Shou was not feeling charitable enough to check up on him personally. He probably wasn’t even related to Tan Hi, now that he thought of it.

“What a tiring, pointless day,” he sighed. He wanted to lie down for a nap, have a good meal, and forget the last few weeks ever existed — preferably all at the same time. Rin looked like the cat who ate the cream, sold it for twice the price to five separate people, and then framed the dog for it.

Same old for the two of them, then.

***

In a moment of weakness, Shou had accepted Rin’s offer to stay at a guest house that evening. They dropped off Yuu Ken Ko, still unconscious but otherwise unharmed, at the first village they saw that had a doctor in it. They walked on until they found another one, with an inn to Rin’s liking.

After a long soak and a good meal, and with the prospect of a good night of sleep in a proper bed ahead of him, Shou was almost willing to let go of his resentment about the waste of time that the last couple of weeks had been. Not even Rin, self-satisfied to the extreme and preening at him from across the table, could spoil his improved mood.

With a delicate knock, the door slid open, and their host came in, bowing apologetically. “Excuse me, good gentlemen, but there is someone knocking on my door begging to see one called Shou Fu Kan. Would you like to see them brought in here?”

Bewildered, Shou allowed that more out of surprise than genuine willingness to see anyone.

“No list, you say,” Rin hummed thoughtfully. 

“Stop assuming things,” Shou waved him off. “I don’t know anyone in this country.”

The visitor, when he came, stumbled into rather than entered the room, and spoke prostrated on the floor.

“Most Honorable Sir Shou Fu Kan! I am so relieved to hear you are well — my master has heard of a wicked sorcery happening in the direction where you said you were travelling to, and I rushed to catch up with you as fast as I could. Please accept these scrolls from our modest shrine as a token of our undying gratitude for helping to exorcise the demonic infestation that was eating through the pillars of our shrine…”

Rin laughed a silver, pearly laughter that felt a slap to the cheek. 

“Burlap sack it is,” said Shou, resigned. “But tomorrow. Come back tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yuu Ken Ko's name is chosen to evoke the image of duplicity.
> 
> 幽悬湖 can be rendered as "quiet deep lake"; Yuu of the first syllable has connotations of being hidden alongside quiet, and Ken of the second syllable may denote something illusory. Absolutely arbitrarily, this has been inspired by a proverb in my mother tongue that says that in a quiet pond there be devils; turns out, in Chinese there is a common idiom 深不可测 that means "too deep to measure" and is often used for mysteriously unreadable people. So tickled that such different languages are thinking along the same lines ♥
> 
> (many thanks to [redacted until reveals] for helping me coin a tasteful dodgy mcdodge name for my sanfan victim of the day)


End file.
